Mission
I love the story Jesus tells of the sheep and the goats. It is both a clear definition of Christian mission and Jesus at his most unequivocal. For a post-church Christian who has reluctantly become accustomed to ambivalence, I embrace the story's simplicity – I you don't express Christ's love to “the least of these” in measurable action then you go to hell. Clear and simple.
Yet ambiguity is a feature of deconstructed life in 2005. A “story” is, by definition, ambivalent. Even a moment's theological reflection tells us that Christ was speaking to a particular audience in a defined culture at a specific point in history with the story related back to us through the eyes (and values) of the writer – so to take the words wholesale into the 21st century without first understanding them in their context is simply poor scholarship.
We are still left, however, with the distinct impression that, both then and now, Jesus Christ continues to say awkward things about how we should live; awkward things that both the church and post-church community must grapple with, if only for the sake of our integrity.
For me I think that a catalyst for leaving the church was despair at how irrelevant the majority of church activity – both in terms of money and time – was to gospel goals. I couldn't help but contrast the amount of money sucked each week into running costs - salaries, rates, insurance, maintenance and depreciation, heating and lighting – with the relative pittance given away to desperate communities overseas and in New Zealand. In this sense, the financial support of church life has about as much in common with the gospel as paying your subs to the tennis club.
Likewise the use of our time for gospel ends. This started to hit home for me one Sunday morning when I was sitting at home feeling guilty that I was not in church. I realised that, if my criticism of the church were to have any foundation, I should be advancing the gospel's aims with my new-found free time. So I did. I found myself something to do – voluntary work with a computing outfit which puts internet connected PCs in front of underprivileged groups. This work may not have changed the world, but I have often pondered the striking difference between the two activities I could have pursued on Sunday mornings. Is it too rich to say that church life – the things which use up church-goers time and money – has, to a great extent, become irrelevant to the mission of the gospel?
Being post-church whilst remaining Christian puts us in a quandary. On the one hand we are obliged to respond to Christ's injunctions to act, as is any other Christian: being post-church is not an excuse for neglecting the beatitudes and peacemakers are still required to make the peace. Yet, the journey to a post-church Christian understanding is like a one-way trip into the desert, alone. At least in the short-term, nothing more than a bare shell of faith remains and consequently there is little energy for any outward expression of inward beliefs. Furthermore, the cynicism which often accompanies us on this trip is a counter-weight to missional activity.
I feel torn at this point. It is akin to the exuberance and despondency of completing the round-the-bays fun run with 10,000 others but having no-one to run with. This is because the fundamental counter-challenge facing post-church Christians is that the values of Christ, whilst clearly missional, are also inherently communal. Whilst attempting to heal our damaged faith of conventional church life have we post-church Christians isolated ourselves too far from missional communities of faith?
To be healthy Christians with a robust faith we need to operate at two levels: at one level we need to face up to, embrace and practice the story of the “the sheep and the goats”; at a second level, these actions must originate from within close relationships centred around sermon-on-the-mount values. Faith which operates at only one of these two levels is deficient faith.
This is not to imply that we must return to conventional church-based organisations – from a missional perspective some of these are so unhealthy they should be scrapped and built again from scratch, but those of us who have become isolated because of our post-church journey also need to somehow find fellow-travellers on the same road and begin travelling together. For me, achieving an integrated and mature faith whilst neglecting to both serve my community and to do so in the company of others rings hollow – for the sake of those who are marginalised and oppressed, and for our integrity, we must close this gap
I love the story Jesus tells of the sheep and the goats. It is both a clear definition of Christian mission and Jesus at his most unequivocal. For a post-church Christian who has reluctantly become accustomed to ambivalence, I embrace the story's simplicity – I you don't express Christ's love to “the least of these” in measurable action then you go to hell. Clear and simple.
Yet ambiguity is a feature of deconstructed life in 2005. A “story” is, by definition, ambivalent. Even a moment's theological reflection tells us that Christ was speaking to a particular audience in a defined culture at a specific point in history with the story related back to us through the eyes (and values) of the writer – so to take the words wholesale into the 21st century without first understanding them in their context is simply poor scholarship.
We are still left, however, with the distinct impression that, both then and now, Jesus Christ continues to say awkward things about how we should live; awkward things that both the church and post-church community must grapple with, if only for the sake of our integrity.
For me I think that a catalyst for leaving the church was despair at how irrelevant the majority of church activity – both in terms of money and time – was to gospel goals. I couldn't help but contrast the amount of money sucked each week into running costs - salaries, rates, insurance, maintenance and depreciation, heating and lighting – with the relative pittance given away to desperate communities overseas and in New Zealand. In this sense, the financial support of church life has about as much in common with the gospel as paying your subs to the tennis club.
Likewise the use of our time for gospel ends. This started to hit home for me one Sunday morning when I was sitting at home feeling guilty that I was not in church. I realised that, if my criticism of the church were to have any foundation, I should be advancing the gospel's aims with my new-found free time. So I did. I found myself something to do – voluntary work with a computing outfit which puts internet connected PCs in front of underprivileged groups. This work may not have changed the world, but I have often pondered the striking difference between the two activities I could have pursued on Sunday mornings. Is it too rich to say that church life – the things which use up church-goers time and money – has, to a great extent, become irrelevant to the mission of the gospel?
Being post-church whilst remaining Christian puts us in a quandary. On the one hand we are obliged to respond to Christ's injunctions to act, as is any other Christian: being post-church is not an excuse for neglecting the beatitudes and peacemakers are still required to make the peace. Yet, the journey to a post-church Christian understanding is like a one-way trip into the desert, alone. At least in the short-term, nothing more than a bare shell of faith remains and consequently there is little energy for any outward expression of inward beliefs. Furthermore, the cynicism which often accompanies us on this trip is a counter-weight to missional activity.
I feel torn at this point. It is akin to the exuberance and despondency of completing the round-the-bays fun run with 10,000 others but having no-one to run with. This is because the fundamental counter-challenge facing post-church Christians is that the values of Christ, whilst clearly missional, are also inherently communal. Whilst attempting to heal our damaged faith of conventional church life have we post-church Christians isolated ourselves too far from missional communities of faith?
To be healthy Christians with a robust faith we need to operate at two levels: at one level we need to face up to, embrace and practice the story of the “the sheep and the goats”; at a second level, these actions must originate from within close relationships centred around sermon-on-the-mount values. Faith which operates at only one of these two levels is deficient faith.
This is not to imply that we must return to conventional church-based organisations – from a missional perspective some of these are so unhealthy they should be scrapped and built again from scratch, but those of us who have become isolated because of our post-church journey also need to somehow find fellow-travellers on the same road and begin travelling together. For me, achieving an integrated and mature faith whilst neglecting to both serve my community and to do so in the company of others rings hollow – for the sake of those who are marginalised and oppressed, and for our integrity, we must close this gap
Peter
McKenzie-Bridle